Main Menu

Recent Ones

Contact Us

Five Things to Take Off Your Resume in 2017

If you’ve been out of school for a while, your resume has probably evolved along with your career. That’s as it should be, but while you...

If you’ve been out of school for a while, your resume has probably
evolved along with your career. That’s as it should be, but while you’re
adding experience and tweaking your resume to reflect your latest
career focus, don’t forget to step back and look at your CV like a
hiring manager.What you see might surprise you. It’s easy to just keep tacking on
new job titles, and hard to recognize when you’re creating a resume
monster. Without some perspective, your job application materials might
be telling prospective employers exactly the wrong story about you and
your abilities.Resume writing is as much about what you don’t include as what you
do. To bring yours up to date, grab your red pen (or wireless mouse) and
delete the following:

The Objective

Nothing says, “I began my career during the previous century” like an
objective statement. (And I say this as someone who was alive and fully
employed during the Y2K panic.)There was nothing really wrong with objective statements – they told
hiring managers what you could do and what you were looking for. But
they’re out of vogue now, and they’ll make your resume seem dated. Plus,
our attention spans are only getting shorter. To grab the reader’s
attention, start your resume off with a branding statement. This brief description should tell employers what you bring to the role that others don’t.

‘References Available Upon Request’

Every employer knows that you’ll provide references when asked, so
there’s no need to say so. Also, real estate is at a premium on a
resume. While career experts disagree on whether one-page-only resumes
are still a must, it’s a pretty safe rule. If nothing else, one-pagers
are easier to hand out at networking events.

Jobs That Are More Than 10 Years Old

It’s illegal to discriminate against workers based on age (once you’re 40),
but employers do it anyway, and often through sneaky means. Don’t
assist them by including jobs that are more than 10 years old, unless
you’re high up on the corporate ladder. Chances are, many of your older
jobs are less-than-relevant by now anyway, especially if you’re in a
fast-changing industry.

Anything Unrelated to the Job You’re Pursuing

Your resume isn’t your biography; it’s not cheating to pick and
choose which jobs and projects to include. Ideally, you should tweak
your CV for each job application, gearing it specifically toward the
role and emphasizing the keywords that are most applicable. If you must
use a template, develop a separate one for each type of job opening, and
edit accordingly before you submit it online or pass it to a hiring
manager.

Your Home Address

This one isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s also no longer really
necessary. The most important thing about you, as far as the employer is
concerned, isn’t where you live in the real world but where you live
online. Replace your home address with a URL for your online portfolio
or professional social media accounts.Just make sure that whatever you share reflects the best possible
version of you. In fact, it’s safe to assume that any hiring manager
worth their salary will Google you and find all of your various social
networks – so clean them up accordingly beforehand.Need another reason not to include your home address? Your commute might disqualify you.“When you put your address on your resume, believe me, they do the math,” writes Donna Svei of Avid Careerist.
“If your commute would be longer than what’s known to be tolerable
long-term, your resume often finds its way into the ‘maybe’ or ‘no’
pile.”Maybe you’re willing to travel an hour and a half during rush hour
for the perfect gig, but they don’t know that. Don’t give them an excuse
to overlook your application.